I really enjoyed having Kelsey MacDonald come in and speak to us. We met her earlier in the year at the District Learning Commons where I remember her positive, bright and energizing spirit. After today’s presentation, she left me feeling even more inspired and energized. Her passion to support land-based learning through Indigenous ways is heard through her voice which radiates love and enthusiasm about her goals and experiences in the past couple years that have transformed what land-based learning looks like.
I like how Kelsey started off her presentation with explaining what Lheidli T’enneh means and explained the two rivers meeting using her hands. I loved that she got her audience to do it with her. This technique was a great as it was engaging and interactive. I feel like this example would be great to use in the classroom with students as it is more engaging and meaningful than just getting students to read off a land acknowledgement without actually knowing what it means.
Kelsey spoke about all children wanting “a sense of belonging” which resonated with me and my core values. Along with strongly believing that all students seek connection rather than attention. If they do not get that connection then they seek it in other means which is usually the challenging behaviour we see. In my future classroom, I would make sense of belonging one of my main priorities as I would like to understand what was important to each of my students to feel a sense of belonging in the classroom and in the world.
Kelsey spoke a lot about how it was her job to get students on the reserves to start attending school again and get them engaged in learning. In order for her to do achieve this, she needed to know what was important to them and what they were interested in learning. Through conversations and building that rapport with students, she was able to start programs on traplines and these initiatives followed through with a lot of powerful insight and reflections as student engagement was witnessed. It is amazing to hear powerful stories like these where communities of children have been shutting down yet, by creating a sense of belonging for them in their communities; incredible work can be achieved and seen.
I also liked how Kelsey encouraged us as educators to dream big and shine our passion into everything that we do. She even encouraged us to pitch our ideas to the district if there is something we want to do that is different that teaching in the classroom. This got me thinking to how I would love to be a travelling teacher for a year and go to a variety of schools and talk about mental health. I’d like to create a whole program on talking about topics that may be difficult but also engaging in a variety of hands on activities that could support students to share their feelings. I think it is important for students to learn ways to express grief and ways to talk about death of pets and family members. In a society where many people find it uncomfortable to talk about death, I think it’s important to teach students early on healthy ways to express themselves in grief they may be encountering.
Kelsey mentioned knowing your ‘why’ for being in the educational field. For me, my ‘why’ stems from seeing individual growth in students as they connect with other students and have their ‘Aha moments’. Those moments for me are rewarding and filled with so much excitement and gratitude.
